Daly bill could reduce south O.C. presence on the OCFA’s Board of Directors

On Tuesday, at our regularly scheduled meeting, the Board of Supervisors discussed taking a formal position on Assembly Bill (AB) 1217, authored by Orange County Assemblyman Tom Daly.

The current composition of the Board of Directors of the Orange County Fire Authority (OCFA) is determined by the Joint Powers Agreement that created the authority and under which it operates, as amended. The OCFA Board of Directors has 25 members. Of the members, 23 represent “partner cities.” The County is represented by two members of the Orange County Board of Supervisors.

Members of the OCFA Board of Directors hold office until the selection of a successor by the appointing body. Each member also appoints an alternate to act in each director’s absence, who must be an elected representative of the governing board of the member. Each director and alternate serves at the pleasure of his or her governing body.

If passed into law, AB 1217 would change the composition, selection method and terms of the OCFA Board of Directors, increasing representation by County supervisors from two members to three while decreasing the representation of city board members from 23 to 10. The bill specifies that the Board of Supervisors will select its three members to serve terms of two years on the OCFA board. City membership would include one member from each of the five supervisorial districts, to be selected by an Orange County Fire Authority City Selection Committee on a population-weighted voting basis. A similar population weighted voting basis is used to determine certain seats on the Orange County Transportation Authority. Finally, one member from each supervisorial district also would be elected by the City Selection Committee based on a “one city, one vote” basis.

My colleagues and I voted to take a “watch,” position for the time being. I am highly concerned with regards to the impact AB 1217 will have on the Fifth District’s South County cities that are represented on the OCFA Board. I will continue to actively monitor AB 1217 and will be proactively engaging and meeting with South County City Councilmembers to address the potential negative impacts this bill has on the Fifth District, and collaboratively work towards a solution that ensures adequate representation of the Fifth District cities.

4 thoughts on “Daly bill could reduce south O.C. presence on the OCFA’s Board of Directors”

Those who breathed a sigh of relief that Daly’s election to a Sacramento Representative seat would rid Orange County of his reverse Midas touch, (cough, cough, Recorder’s Archive Building Fiasco, cough) can look to AB 1217 for proof of their grievous error. The Stupes are certain to enjoy an opportunity to increase their own political control, whose stunning success with things like the IT contract can be found chronicled weekly in Voice of OC and OC Weekly. Counting up Daly’s core competencies, such manipulations are certainly good for a finger toward filling ONE hand (the middle one, from OC residents perspective!) But a visit for some data to Wikipedia and the OCFA webpage, and indeed the Boards own “Analysis” finds scant support for anything else of use, nor for the measures claim of “improving representation”. Stupe seats are awarded according to equal population, while the divide between OCFA served population and Own City Fire departments across the Stupe districts is ANYTHING BUT EQUAL. So as if SURRENDERING direct voting input (through own-City members) to the OCFA weren’t BAD ENOUGH, Daly’s proposed “rebalancing” by imposing the Stupe District Template does EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE! You can find the list of Own City departments by clicking through the OCFA Page, and compare that to Stupe district boundaries from OCVote.com, and then pull City population from Wikipedia, so check me out! OC population (2013 est) 3,114,363 divided by 5 Stupe districts gives 622,893 folks each. OCFA total service population (their webpage) 1.68 M (ONLY approximately 2 districts worth!) Lets run down the Districts, and drop out population of Cities with their own Fire Depts, and see what’s left- (District boundaries don’t evenly follow City boundaries, and split some Cities- this is my best guess, you can refine it !) District 1 – Garden Grove (2010 pop 175,140) is own Dept. Westminster, Santa Ana are OCFA 622,893 (district) – 175,140 (GG) = 477,753 (28% drop) for 1 BOS vote vs 2 City votes

From a 71% imbalance (District 1) to a 4% imbalance (District 5) is ANYTHING BUT EQUAL! Either Daly hasn’t bothered checking these numbers or hopes you won’t. To me this ‘equalizes’ representation about as much as a thrown hammer equalizes a plate glass window. Apparently Daly prefers to spend his time fixing the unbroken while the States Water and Financial problems continue. I beg to differ. Full discosure- (Flat) Anaheim provides my fire service, so no self benefit here, except opposing government WASTE!

I’ll save someone the trouble of correcting a few errors that crept into the above,( that have NO effect on numbers or AB 1217’s inadvertent (?) aggravation of imbalance between cities, and concentration of BOS control at the expense of accountability by/to Member City Voters )- The above references to “1 BOS vote” should of course be to “2 votes per BOS District by the (proxy) OCFA City Selection Committee”, which though given further opacity and isolation from voter choice by the “split method” of the 2 votes (1 by population and 1 by City) STILL preserve the IMBALANCE of the BOS template due to service level differences between districts” The proposed DIRECT increase in BOS seats from 2 to 3 FURTHER aggravates the imbalance, and benefits NO ONE BUT THE BOS.